High School In Woodbury Blocks Students From Accessing Conservative Sites

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A Woodbury High Schooler claims he uncovered political bias in the implementation of a firewall blocking some political Web sites at his school.

18-year-old Andrew Lampart, a senior at Nonnewaug High School, said he made the discovery when he was doing research for a classroom debate on gun control in May. Lampart said he first noticed that he could not get on the web site for the National Rifle Association.

“So, I went over to the other side. And I went over on sites such as Moms Demand Action or Newtown Action Alliance and I could get on these Web sites but not the others,” Lampart said.

Lampart investigated further, by broadening his search terms to Connecticut’s political parties.

“I immediately found out that the State Democrat web site was unblocked but the State GOP web site was blocked.”

Lampart even looked at Web sites focusing on abortion issues and religion. He found that “right-to-life” groups were blocked by the public school firewall but that Planned Parenthood and Pro-Choice America were not. He also tried to get on web sites such as Christianity.com and the Vatican’s web site but both were blocked. Islam-guide.com he found, was not.

“They’re trying to, in my opinion, shelter us from what’s actually going on around the country and around the world by blocking these web sites. It should be the other way around. The web sites should be unblocked so that students can get different viewpoints from different sides of each argument,” Lampart said.

Lampart claims he alerted the Superintendent of Woodbury schools to the situation but, after a week, nothing was done. He took his concerns to the Board of Education on Monday.

“It’s not a joking matter in terms of having access to both sides of an issue,” Board Chairman John Chapman said.

Chapman sent Fox CT an email saying, “the Board appreciated hearing the comments from Andrew and agree that he has raised an important issue that warrants further investigation.”

nhsstudent

As a graduating student I can say that in my time at the school I witnesses librarians and tech advisors wearing shirts supporting Obama during his most recent campaign. I am not hugely interested in politics nor do I agree any more with one side than the other but I really think people’s jobs should be on the line if they are blocking sites based on their own political views as appears to be the case here.

jimmo531

You got it! And I have given a great deal of thought to how our society might both prevent and undo some of the damage from subversive political thought in our culture, to wit–

I would actually like to see a Federal citizens commission established, whose mission would be to weed out extremist political viewpoints from our educational systems and from the media (including the entertainment business), to “repeal and replace” (to borrow a favorite phrase from “The Trumpster”) left-wing teachers in schools and reporters, entertainers and producers in the media, in favor of teachers, reporters, entertainers and producers who, respectively, present more objective information to students and consumers.

Perhaps media companies who employ reporters, editors, entertainers and producers who hold potentially treasonous viewpoints could me made to feel the economic pressure of boycotts of their goods and services, and a nationally-established listing/website identifying such extremists (so-called “journalists,” as well entertainers and producers) to advertisers and owners of these media companies could be developed by such a citizens commission. The time is long overdue for a national watchlist of political subversives in both our media and educational institutions, if any chance is still possible to save our republic from such subversiveness. But unlike when this goal was attempted by such patriots as the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director J. Edgar Hoover (both of who were made bogeymen and demonized by the political left), this time the eradication of subversives from our societal institutions would be done more smartly and by joint efforts holding shared responsibilities.

In terms of identifying extremist teachers within educational institutions, the best place to begin are the obvious entities–the economics, history and political science departments of colleges and universities are where the greatest numbers of Marxist ideologues are being harbored, some fossils (such as Noam Chomsky) by this point who have been employed since they were hired as younger adjuncts and professors in the late 1960s. The other obvious sources of extremist political indoctrination are the departments which, by their very names, imply unhinged and deviant thought processes–ones with such non-traditionally-academic monikers as “Gender Studies,” “African-American Studies” and “Women’s Studies.” Any academic departments which have to justify their existences by incorporation outside traditional academic strata (such as “history or “sociology” departments) are obvious culprits for propagandist indoctrination in higher education.

In terms of secondary and elementary educational institutions (whether private or public), the best way to identify radical teachers is by parents and guardians of children speaking with their own charges who may be the effective clients of such subversive instructors. Then, pressure may be brought upon the relevant schools by virtue of withholding tuition (or even taxes to local school systems) unless such instructors would be relieved of their employment; such instructors replaced by non-biased employees who have been taught at colleges/universities with an objectivist (striving for non-political bias or, at the very least, striking a balance between left and right-wing political ideologies) teaching method. In fact, more teaching colleges need to be established which turn out students who become teacher-certified after they are, themselves, instructed in the objectivist educational method.

Additionally, after an overhaul of our educational systems, theoretically, no reporters nor editors would be any longer turned out who would not have been trained in the objectivist educational method. Thus the media would only be hiring reporters and editors who present truly “fair and balanced” reporting, non-biased information presented to the public. Of course there could still be opinion/editorial (so-called “op/ed”) space within a publication, as well opinionated presentations in electronic media, so long as clearly labeled “commentary.” But no actual opinions would any longer be tolerated to become incorporated within the reporting of actual news stories. And to ensure these standards would be practiced with accountability, violations of these journalistic rules would be subject to heavy fines upon the offending media organizations, perhaps imposed by a joint commission comprised of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a print media oversight board, under guidelines established by the unnamed, aforementioned national commission on subversiveness and treason I have proposed.

And no religious education or indoctrination has any place in any but a parochial or theological school, except to the extent the history of religions may be taught in private (but non-sectarian) and public schools as part of a curriculum in world history. But even then, no religion may be presented with a greater favor over another, nor any religion disparaged except to the extent a religion maybe viewed in a negative light from the perspective of actual facts from history (i.e–the Roman Catholic Inquisitions, the Islamo-fascist terror attacks of 09-11-2001, etc.).

It is also long since past the time that political correctness be eradicated from schools, when it has gone to such an extent elementary school students may not participate in even simple Halloween (because it may offend some kooks who think pagan practices as so-called “Wicca” a legitimate religion) or Valentine parties, or where Christmas traditions have been banned from public schools in communities which are majority Christian. Most Christmas traditions are from a secular, Santa Claus perspective anyway, with the exception of the singing of some Christmas carols as “Silent Night,” “The First Noel,” etc. And non-Christian students in public schools which hold Christmas traditions may certainly always have the right to refrain from participation in such activities if they wish (without being made to feel ostracized), with alternative activities afforded them during the periods when Christmas traditions are practiced. The greater point being the majority should not ever be held hostage by a vocal minority, in the exercise of such relatively benign and well-intentioned cultural observations. And by contrast, in a community which is majority Jewish, non-Jewish students at a public school in such a community would, likewise, be afforded alternative activities during the periods when a Jewish majority would, for example, be holding Passover activities. A great deal of all this is based on something we seem to have lost in our society–“common sense.”

Beyond this, I think the United States Congress needs to adopt a new Alien and Sedition Act that would render communism and Islam as illegal and treasonous ideologies punishable by Federal statute. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution is not absolute, as the oft-cited adage about one not being allowed to “yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” relates. Our nation is endangered by communism and radical Islam right now, and appropriate measures need to be taken to remove these destructive ideologies from our national institutions. If these ideologies were made illegal by an Act of Congress, this would remove any claims by litigious entities of any infringements upon nationally-enshrined so-called “rights.” And thus Muslims could be deported from the U.S. and communists be tried for treason and, accordingly, imprisoned upon a finding of guilty by a jury.

Furthermore, at least a few generations, now, of citizens have been brainwashed by the extreme political left, and at least some segment of one generation brainwashed by Islamist radicalism. Efforts need to be made to identify those who have been so brainwashed (supporters of communist Bernie Sanders are a good starting point) and place such individuals in a program that would have as its goal the deprogramming of such individuals, similar to how children brainwashed by religious cults are placed in unbrainwashing/deprogramming treatment programs by their parents.

All of my suggestions heretofore would be good places to start in terms of restoring our republic of the United States to the decent and strong nation it had been until the past three decades or so. The “draining” of that proverbial “swamp” encompasses more than a thorough housecleaning from our Federal government. The swamp-draining also means we need to remove the harmful factors from our other common national institutions (the media and schools) which have, likewise, been corrupted. Because, as we should all know by now, they who control the media (and the other primary sources of information, the schools) also control the message. It is long since past the time we have some new messages (or, in many cases, a restoral of some “old messages” that were removed by subversives and treasonists).

Robert W

You would think that with Liberal Democrats controlling pretty much the whole state of CT they would have confidence in their positions. However, clearly they don’t want kids to learn that their might be some alternative points of view to the official orthodoxy. Doesn’t sound like confidence to me. Sounds like fear.

thomas

That’s why I said this’ll be an Empty Investigation that results in NO CHANGE to the district’s rules. It’ll just carry on the tradition of BRAINWASHING our children into being Liberals! They knew FULL well what was going on. So far, no student’s had the BALLS to complain! I don’t care if this kid DOES have liberal views. First off, he’ll grow OUT of that! Second of all, they should be ALLOWED access to ALL sides! Not just the teachers!